


Skin Medicine

by Vashti (tvashti)



Series: Many Mothers' [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, August 2019 TwistedShorts Ficathon, Canon-Typical Violence, Community: twistedshorts, Gen, MILD - Freeform, Male-Female Friendship, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Road Trips, some proofreading we die liek mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22071418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvashti/pseuds/Vashti
Summary: Slayer and the other Green Place women warriors are almost too much for Max to bear.
Series: Many Mothers' [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1587670
Kudos: 10
Collections: TwistedShorts





	Skin Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the August 2019 FAD. It’s been edited for clarity but is largely unchanged.

There was a time when Max would have asked the young woman driving next to him, what she meant by saying to call her Slayer. Back before he'd've had her pegged for a gang member or, more likely then, the stupid girlfriend of a gang member -- stupid for being involved with any bloke in a gang.

Back before... Max, he'd've pegged himself for a gang heavy dressed as he was...dirty and beaten and carrying a bag of guns as he was.

Around him, the lightweight Green Place rigs swerved and turned and curved, dancing around the rig Slayer drove. Their occupants whooped and shouted, loud as any war party Max had the misfortune of crossing. Sometimes they tossed their strange ululating cry between them like a ball in a game. Sometimes they carried it along as they drove their patterns, so that it wove a sonic net around Slayer's rig. There was at least one hour when they drove no pattern, except to keep Slayer's rig in the center, and merely chatted loud enough to be heard over the wind and their engines.

Slayer said little. Max said less. She asked him hardly anything at all, which he appreciated. She accepted his mumbles for the answers they were, didn't try to touch his gear, showed him where were the aqua-cola was stored, and watched his back from a careful distance when he had to take a whizz (a favor which he returned).

Max couldn't have asked for a better driver. All that was needed to make it perfect was for him to be driving, but he didn't know the way (not yet), and he couldn't promise that he wouldn't turn Slayer's rig around, and drive them in the other direction.

It's not until they stop for the night that Max learns how young some of these Green Place warrior women are. They'd been too far away to see distinct-like when they'd ridden to his rescue at the cliffs. After Slayer had coaxed him out of his hidey-hole, they'd kept their distance. Even when they'd stopped to swap drivers or take a piss, none had come too close, busy handling their own business. Now he could see they were not all young women like Slayer. Some were genuinely girls--5000 days maybe, but one was barely that. 

And all unmarked. 

The health in Slayer's cheeks, the strength of her hands, the muscles that played beneath her clothes as she moved, and her mouth full of strong white teeth spoke of foreignness, more than her Toast brownness and Capable red hair. The five unmarked Wido--Sisters emerging from the back of Furiosa's war rig had been an impossible vision. Six, counting Furiosa herself. The Vuvalini they'd met on the road had only numbered seven total, and Max could only speak to the health of three. 

Here, ranging from 5000 to 7000 days old, were at least thirty healthy people. Thirty healthy women of childbearing age. Max's mind flashed to Jesse and the sprog, to the heavily pregnant Splendid and newly pregnant Dag, to motherless Gloria. Cheedo's face flashed before him, sweet and frightened of the burning world.

(At some point Splendid and her unborn sprog had joined his gallery of waking nightmares twelve days out of the new Green Place.)

Max stopped in his tracks. A cold sweat broke out all over his body. 

Slayer immediately noticed, and turned. “You a’right there, raggedy man?”

The faces kept move through his mind’s eye. No. He wasn’t a’right. But he couldn’t say it.

“Max? Fool!” Slayer grabbed his arm and instinct took over. 

Max twisted his arm to break her hold and disable her. Slayer moved fluidly to counter. 

They were fighting before Max remembered where he was and who he was fighting and why. “Slayer,” he breathed.

His moment of lost focus got him knocked into the sand, a knee in his spine. “Returned have ya?”

“Yeah.” Max flopped cheek-first into the sand, laughing as best he could with a knee in his back.

Slayer eased off him. “Sure?” The skepticism was clear in his voice and clearer on her face when he rolled over. She offered him his hand.

The grunt he gave her as she pulled him up was his answer. She seemed satisfied. “Was gonna invite you out huntin’ with us, but maybe tonight ain’t it, yeah? Some’a the girls is stayin’ behind no matter what, watch the vehicles, watch the gears. Theres days and days ahead of us. Maybe another day is better for goin’ with us, yeah?” 

Probably he should have bristled at the suggestion that he couldn’t go, but mostly Max felt relief. He wasn’t ready. Not tonight. Let these wild, unmarked warrior women feed their wandering clan. Tomorrow...

Max could feel his head and shoulders slowly dropping as he nodded. He hadn’t driven one mile (his rig was tied behind Slayers) but he was as tired. So tired. It had been a hundred days or more since he’d had someone he could trust at his back.

“I’ll stay.”

“Good,” Slayer said, stepping into his space. “We needed someone experienced to stay behind.” But before he could tense she had her hands on his shoulders and her forehead pressed to his. Even with his head down, she had to tiptoe to reach him. She did not retreat immediately, seemingly content to hang between. Max watched her through his eyelashes for a moment, watched her breath, then closed his eyes and breathed with her, his own hands coming rest on her shoulders.

One of Slayer’s hands snaked up to the back of his head, pressing them closer. “Furiosa said you was a raggedy man, but you’re gonn’ be five by five. You’ll see.”

Fin[ite]

**Author's Note:**

> I really thought this would be a 2-shot at best...


End file.
